LIGHTSHIPS OF THE COLUMBIA BAR

story by STEVE ZUGER

LV-50 COURTESY RON JANARD RON COURTESY

For nearly a century, ships anchored in treacherous waters— and manned by sturdy, adventurous souls— helped vessels navigate into the channel.

40 Winter 2018-2019 COAST www.oregoncoastmagazine.com COURTESY RON JANARD RON COURTESY

facing page: WLV-604, the last lightship to serve on the , now rests at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. above: The LV-50, the first lightship chosen for duty on the Columbia River, began its service in 1892.

aritime legends have a way of running mariners. It took a unique type of person to work deep, and word of a treacherous patch of aboard a lightship: one who had courage, patience, Mwater never takes long to get around. The and the willingness to put the safety of others front Columbia River Bar is one such place. and center. A system of submerged shoals and sandbars three Feelings of isolation and loneliness were magnified miles wide and six miles long, the bar is where the by the haunting sound of the wind passing through mighty Columbia River, flowing from the east like the rigging wires and the crashing of the waves. If this water from a high-pressure hose, collides with the wasn’t enough to rattle nerves, the fear of being hit by Pacific Ocean’s opposing current. This around-the- a passing ship and the constant pitching and rolling clock collision has claimed several hundred lives and added to the discomfort. The foghorn itself was also sent nearly 2,000 ships to the ocean floor. hard on the crew’s nerves, with 140 decibels sending A place where conditions can change from calm- shockwaves through the ship. and-collected to terrifying faster than you can slap One lightship sailor, Jim Gill, described duty off a tick, the bar has always been a challenge. When the coast of . “Most of the guys were storms and darkness settle onto this dangerous patch puking their guts out into a bucket—the ones not of ocean, mariners need help. A high-intensity form affected were starving because the galley was shut of illumination to light the way across the bar was the down . . . sleep was often impossible due to the violent obvious choice, but a lighthouse could not be built motion, the roar of gale force winds, and the bellow of at the mouth of the Columbia because of depth and the fog signal every thirty seconds or so.” currents. So, a surrogate situation had to be found—in Lightships had to be staffed 24 hours a day, seven the form of a lightship. days a week. When conditions turned violent, ships The lightships, called “ships that went nowhere,” would drop a 7,500-pound mushroom-shaped anchor provided a solid and stationary reference point for to the sea floor. Still, there are 247 recorded instances

www.oregoncoastmagazine.com OREGON COAST Winter 2018-2019 41 of lightships being blown adrift and dragged off station by powerful winds. While other vessels usually took refuge some distance from a storm, the captain of a lightship would remain on station to let out more anchor cable and ride out the weather the best way possible.

The first United States lightship put to use was in Chesapeake Bay in 1820. The last one to serve was the Nantucket 1, decommissioned by the United States Coast Guard on March 29, 1985. These two

vessels were bookends to a lengthy timeline of amazing SOCIETY LIGHTHOUSE US COURTESY maritime service and stories of lightships and crew. From 1892 through 1979, four lightships were assigned to stations off the Columbia Bar. As these ships were moved from station to station, recordkeep- ing became a tangled mess. In 1867, all the lightships were given permanent numbers by which they could be identified. The stations they were assigned to would be painted on their sides in large, bold lettering and new names would be re-applied as needed. When a lightship was held in reserve to serve in place of one in dry dock for repairs or maintenance, the word RELIEF would be painted on the hull, which was often painted red to be seen out at sea. The first vessel chosen for duty on the Columbia River Bar was LV-50 (Light Vessel 50) Columbia. It began service in 1892, holding the honor of being the first lightship to serve on the Pacific coast. When its two-and-a-half-ton anchor, along with two other COURTESY COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM 250-4748 backup anchors, slammed into the sea floor, it stapled the lightship in place with a position about 4.4 miles southwest of Cape Disappointment. Soon after, the vessel was moved three miles farther south to mark the main channel entrance. LV-50 was a well-crafted product from San Francisco’s Union Iron Works. Known as a sail schooner rig, the illumination apparatus consisted of two lanterns, each with eight oil lamps. A fog signal was also used when conditions called for it. This was a loud, hand-operated 12-inch steam whistle.

On November 9, 1899, LV-50 broke loose from its CONFLUENCEPROJECT.ORG COURTESY FORD, F. J. BY PHOTO anchor chain as the result of 74-mile-per-hour winds. It stayed offshore under sail while desperate attempts were made to tow it ashore. During this operation, from top: In 1969, Lightship 605 was renamed the Relief, and stood in for all West Coast lightships when they left station for overhaul; The it ran aground near the Cape Disappointment light- LV-93 lit the waters of the Columbia from 1939-1951; Lightship LV-50 after it ran aground.

42 Winter 2018-2019 OREGON COAST www.oregoncoastmagazine.com house, where it lay stranded for over a year. A marine railway was eventually built and the lightship was jacked up onto a cradle. It was then hauled almost 700 yards and launched into Baker Bay at a cost of $17,500, a pretty penny back then. LV-50 had a knack for repeating history when the ship ran aground again on October 6, 1905, due to a snapped anchor chain. The ship was found a quarter mile from Cape Disappointment, beached and banged up. She went off-station again in May 1907, this time going adrift at sea for five days until vessel and crew were rescued by an oceangoing tugboat. In 1909,

COURTESY COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM252-13926 lightship LV-50 was retired from service at the age of 17 years. It was time for a fresh vessel with new lighting, so lightship LV-88 took over to claim its own patch of notorious water at the Columbia Bar, under the guidance of the ship’s leader, Master J. Nielsen.

Born of an East Coast shipyard, LV-88 was an example of durability and elegance, with elaborate woodwork below her decks and a steel hull. She cut quite a silhouette with tall masts contrasting against the bathtub style of the hull. The ship was delivered via the Strait of Magellan because the Panama Canal was yet to open. She was driven by a steam-powered propeller, new technology for its time. In the 1920s, the ship was outfitted with a radio and eventually a radio beacon. In the interest of improved lighting range and

COURTESY COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM251-4814 reliability, its kerosene lamps were replaced with electric lights. Technology had come a long way from an earlier time of oil wick burners and copper reflectors. from top: LV-88, the second lightship to serve at the Columbia Bar A few years later, while anchored in the mouth vicinity; Lightship LV-50 as it is being hauled across land in 1901. of the Columbia River, lightship LV-88 was associ-

www.oregoncoastmagazine.com OREGON COAST Winter 2018-2019 43 ated with something not normally seen by the ship’s crew. On one particular day in 1934, the crew of LV-88 crossed paths with a large unknown sea creature swimming near the mouth of the Columbia River. First Mate L.A. Larson was the first to report the sighting. He described what he saw as a marine

creature about 40 feet in JANARD RON COURTESY length and looking like a plesiosaur. News reports at the mouth of the river. The assignment would end up being time say the crew studied the animal for a while a 29-year run. through field glasses. Some men wanted to inves- When a 7,000-pound anchor dropped from the bow tigate further by taking out a lifeboat to chase it of Columbia, it nailed in place the small red ship about down, but the acting officers of LV-88 turned down five miles from the mouth of the Columbia River. their request because of fears the boat would be This product of the Rice Brothers Shipyard of East swamped. But there would be more sightings of Boothbay, Maine, proved to be one tough ship that the animal through the years by crews of different didn’t take no for an answer. Built with a steel hull, vessels. The creature would end up being known as the vessel showed confidence through angry seas and Colossal Claude. was strong enough to survive into the next century. The lights high above the deck were rated at 15,000 After LV-88 was removed from service in 1939, candlepower, with an eventual upgrade to 600,000 LV-93 was immediately put on duty. The robust candlepower that increased the range of light up to 13 crew moored the vessel at the main channel for the nautical miles. The vessel was reassigned the number entrance to the Columbia River. When the mush- WLV-604 by the Coast Guard in the mid-1960s, when room-shaped anchor plunged through the turbulent all serving lightships went to the WLV designation. curls of the sea to the ocean floor, it pinned LV-93 Lightship WLV-604 had a crew of 16 until the late about eight miles from North Head Light. Three oil 1960s, with a schedule of 42 days on and 21 days off lamp lenses, rising about 50 feet above the water on to relax the bones. Life on board the Columbia was the ship’s mast, cast a beam of light approximately pleasant at times and the crew made the best of the 14 nautical miles towards the shoreline. environment they were in. There were card games to When LV-93 was decommissioned in 1951, it be enjoyed, fishing, and later on, some television. “The opened the door for Lightship WAL-604 Columbia food was good,” said former WLV-604 commanding to carry on. This vessel would be the fourth and officer Joseph McCarthy. final lightship to be assigned a station near the An occasional visit from a supply ship would bring

44 Winter 2018-2019 OREGON COAST www.oregoncoastmagazine.com fresh water. Food and mail were also brought out on these trips beyond the bar to the anchor site. The crew all agreed that if there was one thing they all felt strongly about, it was the need to be well-fed. This kind of care gave the crew a good state of mind to carry out duties such as standing watch, checking the ship’s radio beacon, and turning on the all-important diaphone foghorn, which gave a loud blast every 20 seconds. Since this ear-piercing sound could be heard five miles away, it would rattle the

COURTESY RON JANARD RON COURTESY nerves of the crew. As McCarthy recalls, “We got so engrossed in playing pinochle and learning to talk between horn blasts, that pretty soon we didn’t hear the foghorn, especially when the fog continued for ten or twelve days.” An air compressor was used to fill tanks that operated the foghorn. This was hard on a night’s sleep because all of this hardware was located beneath the deck where the men were sleeping. Many crewmem- bers considered this worse than the horn itself! And if this wasn’t enough to disrupt the deepest sleeper of the crew, there was always a good storm to rattle collective nerves. With high seas and nearly 90-knot winds, the lightship Columbia would be pulled tight against the anchor chain, and when the right-sized wave hit, the crew would feel a nasty jolt. Exciting moments like this would soon come to an end for the crew of this vessel with the end of its service in 1979, after nearly a three-decade assignment “on station” at the mouth of the Columbia. Navigational buoys were replacing lightships as a cheaper type of technology, so the era of the lightship was starting to disappear. When WLV-604 went out of service, it left a void in Oregon waters never again to

STEVE ZUGER STEVE be filled. It remains one of the best-preserved examples of an American lightship, and the Columbia River Maritime Museum staff is proud to watch over her. The FYI ship currently resides dockside at the museum for all to To learn more about lightships see and go through. along the Columbia, or to see For a ship with a mission only to show others where the WLV-604 Columbia up close, to go, lightships traveled far through maritime history. visit the Columbia River Maritime A legacy of gratitude is still felt to this day as a sign of a Museum. The Museum is open mission accomplished. Raise your glass to them. ■ daily 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the waterfront in downtown Astoria. clockwise from left: WAL-604 and the USCGC Onondaga. WAL-604 early in its service. The 1200 watt lighting source (503-325-2323; crmm.org) of WLV-604 had a range of about 13 nautical miles. www.oregoncoastmagazine.com OREGON COAST Winter 2018-2019 45